Knowledge Problem

On Peak Oil and National Energy Plans

Michael Giberson

Energy consultant Michael Lynch, appearing in the New York Times, says peak oilers don’t know the oil business. “Peak Oil Is a Waste of Energy.”

NRG Energy CEO David Crane, in the Washington Post, asserts we need a national energy plan with a regional focus: solar for the Southwest, wind for the Great Plains, nuclear power for the South, a push for electric cars in the Northeast, and clean coal as a “national project.”  “An Energy Plan We Can Start Now.”

At the Houston Chronicle‘s NewsWatch: Energy blog, Tom Fowler reports on an interview with Daniel Yergin, closing the report with an observation that serves as a kind of neat rejoinder to the points raised in the two previous stories:

Yergin mentioned … the huge potential of so-called unconventional natural gas in the U.S. thanks to the coming together of a number of technology break-throughs.

“Only in the last two months or so has Washington awakened to the reality of unconventional gas,” Yergin said. “There was no master plan here, no 10-year technology road map. It was just a question of finding a combination to pick that lock.”

NewsWatch: Energy also draws attention to Yergin’s article appearing in a Foreign Policy special report, Oil: The Long Goodbye.  I’ve only looked at the Yergin piece, but several others look good too.